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THIS
HER
DOCUMENT
BRITANNIC
IS
THE
MAJESTYS
Printed for the Cabinet.
PROPERTY
OF
GOVERNMENT
February 1974
C M (72)
18th Conclusions
Copy No. 02
CABINET
CONCLUSIONS
of a Meeting of the Cabinet held at 10 Downing Street, S. W.1, on Thursday, 23 March, 1972 at 10.30 a.m. Present:
The Right Hon.
EDWARD HEATH, M P,
Prime Minister
The Right Hon. R E G I N A L D M A U D L I N G ,
M p, Secretary of State for the Home
Department
The Right Hon. S I R A L E C D O U G L A S H O M E , M P , Secretary of State for
Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
The Right Hon.
The Right Hon. A N T H O N Y B A R B E R ,
M p, Chancellor of the Exchequer
ST.
LORD
MARYLEBONE,
H A I L S H A M OF
Lord Chancellor
The Right Hon. W I L L I A M W H I T E L A W ,
M p, Lord President of the Council
The Right Hon. L O R D C A R R I N G T O N ,
Secretary of State for Defence
The Right Hon. SIR K E I T H JOSEPH,
M p, Secretary of State for Social
Services
The Right Hon. GEOFFREY R I P P O N ,
Q c, M p, Chancellor of the Duchy
of Lancaster
The Right Hon. R O B E R T C A R R , M P ,
Secretary of State for Employment
The Right Hon. M A R G A R E T T H A T C H E R ,
M p, Secretary of State for Education
and Science
The Right Hon. G O R D O N C A M P B E L L ,
M P , Secretary of State for Scotland
The Right Hon. T H E
Lord Privy Seal
The Right Hon. PETER W A L K E R , M P ,
Secretary of State for the Environment
The Right Hon. PETER T H O M A S , Q C ,
M P, Secretary of State for Wales
The Righi H o n . JAMES P R I O R , M P ,
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and
Food
The Right Hon. J O H N D A V I E S , M P ,
Secretary of State for Trade and
Industry and President of the Board
of Trade
E A R L JELLICOE,
The following were also present:
The Right Hon. J O H N P E Y T O N , M P ,
Minister for Transport Industries
(Item 4)
The Right Hon. M A U R I C E M A C M I L L A N ,
M p, Chief Secretary, Treasury (Item 4)
The Right Hon. Francis Pym, M P ,
Parliamentary Secretary, Treasury
Mr. P A U L B R Y A N , M P , Minister of State,
Department of Employment (Item 4)
The Right H o n ; S I R PETER R A W L I N S O N ,
Q C, M P , Attorney-General
Secretariat:
SIR B U R K E
TREND
Mr.
CAIRNCROSS
N.
F.
SIR PHILIP
ADAMS
Mr.
B.
G.
TUCKER
Mr.
A.
P.
HOCKADAY
CONTENTS
Subject
PARLIAMENTARY
AFFAIRS
The Budget
OVERSEA AFFAIRS
Iran
Pakistan
Israel
NORTHERN IRELAND
INDUSTRIAL AFFAIRS
Railwaymen's Pay Negotiations
Parliamentary
Affairs
1. The Cabinet were informed of the business to be taken in
the House of Commons in the following week.
The Budget
The Prime Minister said that the Cabinet would wish to tender
to the Chancellor of the Exchequer their warmest congratulations on
the content and presentation of his Budget.
Previous
Reference:
C M (72) 17th
Conclusions
SECRET
Oversea Affairs
2. The Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary said that on his
Iran
way to visit Pakistan he had had a meeting with the Shah of Iran.
He had found that the Shah was broadly content with the arrange­
ments made in the Gulf following the termination of our special
relationships there and that his main concern was with the signs of
increasing Soviet influence in the area. H e considered this particu­
larly dangerous in Iraq, where the Soviet Government were exploiting
dissident Kurdish elements. In this situation the Shah was looking
increasingly to the West for support and assistance; and, as a result,
there were good prospects for the expansion of our trade. In
general our relations with Iran could be regarded as very satisfactory.
Pakistan
Previous
Reference:
C M (72): 14th
Conclusions,
Minute 2
The Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary said that he had been
warmly welcomed during his visit to Pakistan. He had found that
President Bhutto had grown in stature following the Pakistani
defeat and the loss of the former East Wing. The President was
undoubtedly the only political leader with sufficient authority to
unite the country; but he would need to be given time to put it on its
feet again. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister of India, Mrs. Gandhi,
was adding to his difficulties by her insistence that any discussions
about future relations between India and Pakistan should deal with
all outstanding issues, including the very sensitive question of
Kashmir. President Bhutto was prepared to go himself to visit
Mrs. Gandhi for discussions in which, although no agenda need be
agreed in advance, he would hope to deal first with immediate prob­
lems such as the return of Pakistani prisoners of war. Mrs. G a n d h f s
insistence that such discussions could better be handled by a pleni­
potentiary created further problems for President Bhutto, since he had
removed from office most of the senior officials of the former regime
and their replacements were insufficiently experienced to provide
adequate representation. The Foreign and Commonwealth See­
retary recalled that he h a d sent a message to Mrs. Gandhi stressing
the importance of establishing peace in the sub-continent as quickly
as possible and urging her to adopt a more conciliatory attitude
towards President Bhutto. There were also difficulties in the way
of an early meeting between President Bhutto and Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh;, here again, the attitude
of Mrs. Gandhi was crucial and, at the moment, unhelpful.
Israel
Previous
Reference:
C M (72) 16th
Conclusions,
Minute 3
The Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary said that in the course
of a day of discussions with the Prime Minister of Israel, Mrs. Meir,
and the Foreign Minister, Mr. Eban, he had been impressed by the
hardness of their attitude towards the settlement of the Arab-Israel
dispute. They were still insisting that Egypt must learn the lessons
of military defeat and abandon her stipulation that negotiations
could only begin on the understanding that a settlement would
include a provision for the total withdrawal of Israeli forces. With
regard to the recent proposals of the King of Jordan for the creation
of a united A r a b Kingdom on a federal basis, the Israeli Ministers
regarded it as regrettable that the King had publicly staked a claim to
part of Jerusalem, thereby reducing the area of possible negotiation.
In these circumstances there appeared to be no unilateral action
which we could usefully take at this stage to bring together the parties
to the dispute. It was greatly to be hoped, however, that during the
forthcoming visit of the President of the United States to Moscow
the Governments of the United States and the Soviet Union might
agree on steps which could be taken towards a settlement.
The Cabinet—
Took note of the statements by the Foreign and Common­
wealth Secretary.
Northern
Ireland
Previous
Reference:
C M (72) 15th
Conclusions,
Minute 1
SECRET
3. The Cabinet gave further consideration to the situation in
Northern Ireland in the light of the talks the Prime Minister had
held on the previous day with the Prime Minister of Northern
Ireland. Their discussion and the conclusions reached were separately recorded and issued only to The Queen, the Prime Minister and
those Ministers who had to take action.
The conclusions are recorded separately in the standard file held
by the Secretary of the Cabinet.
Industrial
Affairs
Railwaymen's
Pay
Negotiations
Previous
Reference:
C M (72) 16th
Conclusions,
Minute 4
SECRET
4. The Minister for Transport Industries said that, in the course
of further negotiations with the rail unions, the British Railways
Board had improved their offer to just below 11 per cent increase in
the wage bill. Details of the offer were set out in the annex to his
minute of 22 March to the Prime Minister, copies of which had
been circulated to members of the Cabinet. The Board had also
tabled a draft agreement for future co-operation on the industry's
problems, including progress towards a salaried pay structure. AH
the three rail unions had rejected the revised offer, and said that
u l d not be prepared to continue discussions or to consider
the draft agreement without a promise of higher cash increases.
The Board's negotiator had undertaken to report their views to his
Board and to get in touch with the unions again when he had obtained
the Board's views. It was the Board's intention to take their time in
W O
arranging for discussions to be resumed, so that what they believed
to have been a generous offer should meanwhile make its impact on
the union leaders, the railwaymen themselves, and indeed on the
general public. Nevertheless, the Chairman judged it on balance to
be unlikely that the unions would settle on the basis of the revised
offer, and there remained scope for making only a marginal
improvement within the 11 per cent limit on which both the Board
and the Government were resolved. The Chairman had not yet
participated in the negotiations himself, although he was ready to do
so whenever it seemed advantageous; but he did not in any event
intend to agree to meet the unions until after the weekend. Should
the negotiations finally break down, the Board planned to mount a
substantial publicity campaign to explain their position and the
merits of the offer they had made. But it was now unlikely that the
unions would resort to industrial action before Easter.
In discussion the following were the main points made—
(a) The Cabinet were not in a position to judge the Board's
handling of the negotiations and could not dictate their tactics but
the fact that their offer had been raised to within £700,000 of the limit
before the Chairman himself had intervened in the negotiations
might have induced the unions to think that the Board had a good
deal more in hand. If the relatively marginal further improvement
that the Board could still make failed to persuade the unions to
settle, and a breakdown followed, responsibility for the next move
would inevitably fall to the Government themselves, and it might
be difficult to resolve the dispute without a further concession. On
the other hand, there was no indication that the unions had been
allowed to think that they could obtain any significant further
improvement in the offer, and the fact that the threat of industrial
action had so far been averted vindicated the Board's tactics. The
Chairman's decision to reserve his own intervention until the final
stage might be fully justified if, by doing so, he proposed to make it
clear to the unions that they must now make up their minds on the
basis of the offer already made to them.
(b) While the facts of the Board's offer might have been made
known t o the railwaymen generally, through their union branches,
they were not known to the general public and consideration might
be given to publicising them. However it would probably be unwise
to do this by means of a Ministerial speech since it would then appear
that the Government were seeking to intervene while negotiations
were in progress and thereby courting a direct confrontation with the
unions. The Board felt that even a public statement by themselves
in advance of a settlement or the breakdown of. negotiations would be
regarded as provocative. Despite the fact that Ministers would
not wish a settlement to be at a higher level than 11 per cent, an
agreed settlement remained their primary objective and it would be
impolitic to do anything which might jeopardise this.
The Prime Minister, summing u p the discussion, said that the
points made in the Cabinefs discussion could be considered further
by the Ministerial Steering Committee on Pay Negotiations, which
should meet urgently to take stock of the position reached in the
railwaymen's pay negotiations and to consider the next steps.
The C a b i n e t Took note, with approval, of the Prime
u p of their discussion, and invited the
make arrangements accordingly for
Ministerial Steering Committee on Pay
Cabinet Office,
23 March, 1972.
Ministers summing
Home Secretary to
a meeting of the
Negotiations.